Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print control technique to form a gloss layer on a surface of a roughness shape to output a glossy structure.
Description of the Related Art
A printing apparatus has been known to form a gloss layer on a surface of a roughness shape to output a glossy structure. The roughness shapes exemplarily include an example of an embossed paper subjected to a press working. A printing apparatus has been known by which ultraviolet curable clear ink for example is ejected onto such an embossed paper to form a gloss layer to thereby obtain a structure having a desired gloss appearance.
A gloss appearance includes a glossy texture providing a glossy and shiny texture and a mat (or matte) texture providing a moist texture having a weak gloss level for example. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-208348 discloses an image forming apparatus to control the ejection volume of the clear ink and the ultraviolet irradiation timing for example to thereby output glossy printed matters having different gloss appearances such as a glossy texture and a mat texture for example.
In addition to the embossed paper, an arbitrary roughness shape can be formed by a 3D printer for example. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-318140 discloses an inkjet printer to control the ink superposition number to thereby form a roughness shape on a print paper to output a printed matter providing a three-dimensional texture. It is desired to further form a gloss layer on a surface of the formed roughness shape to provide a structure having a desired gloss.